A Tarot Ancestor Garden of Verses: A Reading

We spent a beautiful 2022 using the tarot court cards to connect with the family tree through writing and art. We made personal tarot card art to honor the connections we discovered. 

Please join us as at our reading during which we will share the harvest of our reflections in poetry, prose, and art. Work was created in Antioch University's Continuing Education series, Using Tarot Court Cards to Explore Ancestry. 

This event is free and open to the public. Please pre-register here for the zoom link: A Tarot Garden of Ancestor Verses.

Sunday, January 26, 1 pm PST / 4 pm EST

Our presenters:

Valerie Coleman-Palansky: I am a 5 number and my archetype is The Hierophant: I am inspired by teaching and learning situations, honoring and valuing the sacred within as well as the unlimited source and resource provided by that inner faith and intuition. I am a psychotherapist, NYU adjunct professor, and and a registered Jin Shin Do acupressurist living in the Bronx, New York. I am married and have two almost adult daughters. I engage in many creative arts including writing. I have been specifically involved with tarot and metaphysical doings from my teen years. I synchronistically found Tania and her Heart's Compass Tarot Journaling group and was hooked via the Aces immersion. My first deck was The Golden Dawn Tarot and my most recent is Daughters of the Moon.

 

Alley Greymond: I am driven to learn and at various times have studied Accounting, Psychology, Systems Design, Real Estate Management, Poetry and Non-Fiction. While my current position is administrative support, I find value at work serving with different Employee Resource Groups towards perspective shifts and workplace equity. I’m not used to using my intuition to a robust capacity and when I first joined Tania’s class I felt as though I’d have nothing to offer. What a welcoming group of women and Tania creates an environment for one to think, feel and share. I appreciate having had an opportunity to explore Tarot with these women.  

 

Pratishta Natarajan: I have been fascinated with spirituality and meditation since I was five years old. My father was incredibly passionate about Indian mysticism, and I grew up surrounded by books on Eastern spiritual traditions. I found Tarot when I was a young teen. I loved receiving Tarot readings for years before I attempted doing my own reading. I was amazed by the connection I instantly felt with the cards. Tarot cards have been a powerful guide in my journey of personal healing and transformation. Currently, my favorite tarot deck is the Light Seers. 

 

Deborah Smith: My name is Debby and I live in New Paltz, New York on Lenape land. My pronouns are she/her. I have worked for 40 years practicing and teaching bodywork based in Chinese Medicine. My work with clients includes assisting them in tapping into their inner wisdom through the bodymind connection and supporting their intuitive relationship to their own health and happiness. I have revived my connection to Tarot as a doorway to my own intuition in the last two years and Tania's workshops have been a wonderful part of that. I've done a fair amount of writing related to my profession, but these writing experiences have been very rich and stimulating, both because of my own connections and being privileged to hear from the others in the group. Pulling tarot cards has become like having conversations with a dear and trusted friend: always relevant and always fascinating.

Additional Links of interest:

If you are unable to attend, but interested in using tarot cards to explore ancestry, the book Ancestral Tarot by Nancy Hendrickson is a beautiful place to start.

If you are interested in beginning or deepening your understanding of the tarot, I'll be teaching a new linked series of six-week courses through Antioch University's Continuing Education program that explore how the Major Arcana are connected to the Minors. 

For more information and to register for the first course (starts Sunday, February 26), visit: Tarot Journaling Courses 2023 & 2024

Winter Equinox Launch for The Fool in the Corn

The Fool in the Corn, my memoir-in-poems, is here: the physical copies arrived in the mail and are now in hand! To celebrate the tarot autobiography thread woven throughout this book, I am giving away free three-card tarot readings with purchase of the book on Winter Equinox at a beautiful sanctuary of a store called L.E.A.F. in Carlsbad...Live Enlightened and Free's Chris Parwell, owner, has crafted an amazing space with fountains and curated artwork and metaphysical gifts and gems and books and incense and beautiful greeting cards and more (a fabulous source if you need to round out holiday shopping and peruse a lovely range of options for gifts and stocking stuffers). Thank you for the opportunity to launch in this space, Chris!

I will be at LEAF on December 21 from 11 am to 2 pm. I can't wait to see you, sign a book for you, and send you home with poetry and tarot blessings; I'll give away the tarot readings on a first come first served basis. I'll be at the edge of the store under a pop-up tent; bring your coat, as we will be sitting outside. I can't wait to celebrate with you! The vibe in the store is incredibly healing.

Winter Equinox Book Signing for The Fool in the Corn

LEAF

3225 Business Park Drive, Suite 4

Vista, CA 92081

December 21

11 am until 2 pm

Here's my latest interview about risk-taking during the process of writing The Fool in the Corn. 

And you might also enjoy this review of The Fool in the Corn, written by Glynn Young at Tweetspeak Poetry. Thank you to Laura and Glynn at Tweetspeak for your time and energy supporting the book. 

My boundless gratitude goes to my publisher, Saddle Road Press (Ruth Thompson and Don Mitchell), and to my San Diego writing group and my beloved Flamingoes (you all know who you are). Books come into being during countless hours spent weighing words, themes, commas, colors, you name it...thanks to the love and care of many hearts, gathering around the same hearth, with grit, determination, joy, tears, laughter, and encouragement. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I am blessed beyond compare. You can help the sails of this small press book fill, and send us further across the waters of the publishing world, by leaving us a review, if you are so moved. Thank you again.

The Fool in the Corn: Memoir-in-Poems

Happy Equinox…I am so elated to share one of the harvests of my lifetime: The Fool in the Corn, my memoir-in-poems, forthcoming on Winter Equinox this year. This book has been at least 30 years in the making, and this quiet, sweet blog has given me a sheltered space in which to share for years.

Poems in The Fool in the Corn explore the ways disillusionment with a commune experience in my formative years lead to a rich relationship with tarot, nature, poetry, dreams, and the imagination and helped me face the challenges I’d encounter post-commune in love, graduate school, marriage, motherhood, and withstanding losing my mother to cancer. Here are links to a few interviews in which I talk about the backdrop of this book:

 

Daily Inspiration: Meet Tania Pryputniewicz *(commune background)

Meet Tania Pryputniewicz: Poet, Tarot Muse, Teacher *(creative process)

 

I created the cover art for this book--woman nested inside the corn, corn-silk antennae above her head--using colored pencils. So many various joys went into inspiring the image, including the deep work of creating personal tarot card art to honor ancestors in my tarot ancestry classes I teach at Antioch University. While working through the Suit of Disks, I happened to also be reading the stunning book, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer and soaking in her image of each kernel of corn with its own umbilical silk thread reaching for the sun. 

Though The Fool in the Corn walks through some challenging territory, it also reaches for the nourishment to be found in the sunfield of my life. I didn't initially know I'd be placing the face of the woman inside the corn, but as I drew, my eyes came to rest on a beautiful stained glass mermaid hanging in my house (gift of a dear friend). The mermaid's face appears in profile, and I realized I could place a face inside the heart of the corn, in profile, and it just felt right. Coming off some long months of revising the poems, I had a lot of initial resistance to creating the cover. But once I sat down to draw, with the encouragement of my much-loved team at Saddle Road Press, the rest unfolded, and here it is. I hope you enjoy the cover! I'd love to know if you feel it resonates once you read the poems.

 

You can pre-order The Fool in the Corn pretty much anywhere, your favorite bookstore, and all the usual outlets (Bookshop, Amazon, Indiebound, Powells) but only Barnes and Noble so far has the actual cover up: barnesandnoble.com.

 

I am deeply grateful to Ruth Thompson and Don Mitchell of Saddle Road Press for believing in my work. We are grateful for any support you give the small press; to that end, reviews on Amazon and Goodreads or anywhere you wish to leave one would be much appreciated. I do have Advance Review Copies (a few hard copies and of course, unlimited PDF ARCs); please reach out using the contact form on this blog or on any of my social media channels if you would like to help us get the word out ahead of publication on December 21, 2022. 

You can join me in conversation on IG @heartscompasstarot where I am posting my gratitude to the editors of the magazines in which poems were published singly over the years; they are the backbone of the collection for me, the editors and venues that helped me believe in my work along the way. 

Heart's Compass Tarot Readings at Poet's Corner in Duncans Mills

Come find me in the Magic Circle at Poet's Corner Book Shop in Duncans Mills (Russian River area) this Saturday, where I join Rune reader Jessica Superball to read complementary tarot cards with purchase of Heart's Compass Tarot: Discover Tarot Journaling and Create Your Own Cards (Two Fine Crows Books, 2021) on the bookshop patio. We are celebrating Independent Bookstore Day Saturday April 30 from noon to five pm. 

Local authors Toby Neal, John Mark Schnick, John McCarty, Neal Grace and Daniel Dawson will all be reading from their books at Poet's Corner as well. I'll also have copies of November Butterfly (my first poetry collection, Saddle Road Press, 2014) on hand.  Come listen to music with Joanne and Felipe Ferraz  (Brazilian and American duet).

Also taking place on Saturday in the Duncas Mills Shopping Village: At Sophie's Cellars Wine Shop, a reading and book signing with Iris Dunkle, award-winning literary biographer, essayist and poet. At Revolution Vinyl and Vintage, you'll find children's face painting with local children's author Tracy Stanley. And check out the lemonade stand at Alta California Provision!

April Heart's Compass Tarot Poetry Challenge

"Tarot and poetry are two wings of the same bird..." once said Marianela Medrano, Heart's Compass Tarot poetry contributor; her poem about Kali as tarot's Tower card is one of the 30 poems paired with tarot cards and writing prompts you'll receive to your inbox daily when you join my 30-day tarot poetry challenge. We start April 1.

 

Come focus the windmill of your mind and create new work; tarot is potent and you develop not only a deeper relationship to tarot imagery, but your own intuition and writing practice as well as exploring various forms of poetry. We write together on zoom for four Friday 1 pm PST sessions starting April 1 and then at the end of the month, we celebrate with a public reading of work generated in our writing community. You receive:

 

30 tarot-based prompts and poems delivered daily to your inbox

Four zoom sessions on Fridays to write together

An additional public reading from the tarot poetry body of work you create in our writing community 

 

We draw on imagery from a variety of decks including tarot art from Heart’s Compass Tarot: Discover Tarot Journaling & Create Your Own Cards, like the personal Ace of Swords tarot card at the top of this post, traditionally associated with the mind, thoughts, words and dreams. I chose to make my Ace of Swords an Ace of Windmills after realizing the winds of adversity are precisely what writers channel to create work, to grow, and to heal. 

 

And this is my personal Ace of Disks I created after dreaming about the healing power of trees; here the figure floats over a view of the coin of a tree trunk, a tree ring. I hope you'll join us to write your own tarot haiku, tarot affirmations, or even tarot love letters to yourself. 

 

Course cost for the month-long course is $99; here's a post on my main website with links for signing up and links to view the reading of last year's 30-Day Challenge tarot poetry:

 

April 22 Heart's Compass Tarot Poetry Challenge.

Honoring the Inner Valentine: Make Your Ace of Cups

February 14, Noon to 2 pm PST over zoom / $28

 

Heart’s Compass Tarot, my workbook published by Two Fine Crows Book, turns a year old on Valentine's Day! What a beautiful year—the workbook provided a blueprint for classes and wonderful events all year long, a number of which you can enjoy as recorded presentations on the Heart’s Compass You-Tube channel including Tarot for Memoir, Poets of Heart’s Compass, Tarot for Two and more.

 

I invite you to join me this Valentine’s Day for a 2-hour offering, Honoring the Inner Valentine, Make Your Ace of Cups, held over zoom from Noon to 2 pm PST. Feel free to use the contact form on my blog to drop me a line and I’ll send you the zoom and payment links.

While Valentine’s Day often focuses on “lovers love,” I am so very excited to start this new yearly tradition of making a tarot Ace of Cups card alongside other kindred tarot lovers and tarot curious seekers in community in tribute to the inner heart, the Inner Valentine, every February 14. And in tribute to Heart’s Compass Tarot’s birthday!   

If you only make one tarot card from the deck in your lifetime, I say, let it begin with love—the Ace of Cups, card of the heart. Whether you’ve been working your way through the Heart’s Compass Tarot workbook on your own or you are new to tarot and the Ace of Cups, you are welcome to join us for a loving and lively midday exploration.

 

In this 2-hour workshop we will:

 

·      Look at some beautiful examples of Ace of Cups tarot cards from a variety of decks

·      Reflect, write, and share about our own particular heart-joys and future heart-wishes using a tarot journaling method

·      Begin to make our own Ace of Cups card based on personal heart’s desires

 

To register: Use the contact form on my site to drop me a line to let me know you wish to join. You’ll receive instructions for what to bring to class, our zoom invite, and payment options. Honoring the Inner Valentine: Make Your Ace of Cups meets on February 14, Noon PST-2 pm on zoom. Course cost: $28. All level of tarot lover welcome, from the tarot curious to the tarot savvy.

 

Why Make an Ace of Cups?

This is the Ace of Cups I made back in 2016 alongside my students, as they created their own versions of the cards that would go on to grace the pages of the Heart's Compass Tarot workbook (Carrie’s Ace of Depths appears in the graphic at the top of this post; Lisa’s Ace of Cups depicts the set of hands cupping the heart cup; in the middle is an in-process Ace of Cups I started on a roadtrip). I wrote the following Haiku to accompany this birdlike, fiery, sky Ace of Cups:

 

Self-love’s Ace of Cups

Egret lands, folds outstretched wings

Heart rests between flights

 

As I drew the image of the bird, I felt consciously connected to the blues and lavendars, sensing into the heart and the element of water. I live across from the sea; pastel sunrise skies, egrets, seagulls, pelicans, osprey, sandpipers, and hummingbirds all form my dayscapes. I often wake to the cry of the osprey. I often see the setting sun slipping down behind the ocean’s horizon line. It makes sense that birdwings and sunset colors found their way into that original Ace of Cups. 

I also remember being surprised a bit by the reds and yellows, and the angular, jagged lines emanating from the sunlike orb.  But I also remember it just felt right in my heart of hearts. Allowing myself to immerse in color play, to start with the softer colors, allowed me to reach deeper. I love these reds as much as the blues, for the card ends up reflecting back to me a representation of the complexity and richness of emotions from soft love to the core red surges of anger that also call for expression at the heartline. I colored my way to a type of recognition, a permission to feel a full range of feelings, expressed in a few lines from the workbook:

 

I allow my heart the full range of emotions

From volcanic core to seed-bursting as the sun

I invite my heart’s waves from swell

To dissolving into the larger sea

 

I made my Ace as a mirror of my heart at that time. I am eager to drop into the present and see what I find there now, for I have changed, and oh, how the world has changed, for all of us. I look forward to discovering what you find in your heart's mirror. Come color, paint, sketch, collage--you name it--beside me. Tarot blessings!

A Tarot Garden of Verses: A Reading of Tarot Inspired Poetry and Prose

I’m delighted to announce a celebration of the harvest of a year of tarot reflections by students of my Tarot as Inner Teacher courses (offered by Antioch University’s Continuing Education Program). Each of our four featured readers used writing as a bridge to discover insights at the crossroads of tarot imagery, the heart, and the world.  Join us for poetry, prose, and musings based on the Star, Sun, Fool, Temperance, Tower, Empress tarot cards and more. This reading is free and open to the public and held over zoom on Sunday, January 16 from 1-2 pm PST. Pre-registration is required; sign up here to receive the zoom link for A Tarot Garden of Verses.

 

Elizabeth Brennan

 

My name is Elizabeth and I live in Sonoma County, CA. I work full time as a teacher in an alternative high school. My home is in the country and my favorite pastime is taking long walks along the dirt roads that border apple orchards and vineyards – and/or driving out to the coast (Bodega Bay) and taking long walks along the beach with family and friends. Studying the tarot with Tania as a guide has inspired me to pay more attention to my intuition. I feel more open to subtle messages as life unfolds within me. Each card I study speaks like a song, poem or painting. Interacting with the tarot provides me with the sensation of an inner deepening and trust, as well as a guidance that supports me amidst the challenges and surprises that life brings daily.

 

Alley Greymond

I’m Alley Greymond and I live and work in Seattle, Washington on Duwamish Land. I use she/her pronouns. I am driven to learn and at various times have studied Accounting, Psychology, Systems Design, Commercial Real Estate Management, and Creative Non-Fiction. While my current position is administrative support, what I do find value in at work is leading  and working with different Employee Resource Groups towards perspective shifts and workplace equity. I’m not used to using my intuition to a robust capacity and when I first joined Tania’s class I felt as though I’d have nothing to offer. What a welcoming group of women and Tania creates an environment for one to think, feel and share. I appreciate having had an opportunity to explore Tarot with these women.  

 

Valerie Coleman-Palansky

 

I am a 5 number and my archetype is The Hierophant: I am inspired by teaching and learning situations, honoring and valuing the sacred within as well as the unlimited source and resource provided by that inner faith and intuition. I am a psychotherapist, NYU adjunct professor, and and a registered Jin Shin Do acupressurist living in the Bronx, New York. I am married and have two almost adult daughters. I engage in many creative arts including writing. I have been specifically involved with tarot and metaphysical doings from my teen years. I synchronistically found Tania and her Heart's Compass Tarot Journaling group and was hooked via the Aces immersion. My first deck was The Golden Dawn Tarot and my most recent is Daughters of the Moon.

 

Deborah Smith

 

My name is Debby and I live in New Paltz, New York. I have semi-retired this year from a 40 year career practicing and teaching bodywork based in Chinese Medicine. My work with clients includes assisting them in tapping into their inner wisdom and supporting their intuitive connection to their own health and happiness. I have revived my connection to Tarot as a doorway to my own intuition in the last two years and Tania's workshops have been a wonderful part of that. I've done a fair amount of writing related to my profession, but these writing experiences have been very rich and stimulating, both because of my own connections and being privileged to hear from the others in the group. Pulling tarot cards has become like having conversations with a dear and trusted friend: always relevant and always fascinating. 

Heart's Compass Tarot Valentine's Day Book Launch

I'm standing in a lot of joy, a lot of gratitude, for the fortune and blessing of having my book, Heart's Compass Tarot: Discover Tarot Journaling and Create Your Own Cards debut tomorrow, on Valentine's Day, from Two Fine Crows Books. I'd love for you to join us--we are hosting a Facebook Live Event from the Heart's Compass Tarot and Writing Facebook page. If you RSVP, Facebook will let you know when we go live tomorrow (1 pm PST). 

Ruth Thompson will introduce yours truly and three marvelous heart's compass contributors, Carrie, Gillian, and Lisa. We will discuss our path from tarot journaling to tarot card creation, with a special focus on the Fool cards we made together.

I have so many people to thank--first, Ruth Thompson and Don Mitchell of Saddle Road Press and Two Fine Crows Books for believing in the project and for coursing through the permutations of chapters and edits and image wrangling...all worth it, to bring you a gentle and loving roadmap for developing a relationship to the tarot, or deepening the one you have, regardless of the tarot deck you use. Through a method of tarot journaling to look at past, present, and future, you have the opportunity to get clear about your personal symbols for use in meditation or for the creation of your own tarot cards. You can learn more about the book (which has a variety of chapters from tarot haiku to teens and tarot) on my main site Heart's Compass Tarot: Valentine's Day Release.

I also have my two writing groups, the Flamingos, and the Feisty writers, to thank, as well as my two memoir teachers, Marcia Meier and Marni Freedman. I worked on tarot essays and the book's structure in their classes. I thank my three children (all of us together under the pandemic roof) and husband for putting up with my tarot focus as I let myself float down the tarot river and into the tarot sea. I always come back to them, and I thank them for their love and trust.

Heart's Compass Tarot is available for pre-order at Bookshop, Amazon, Indiebound, Barnes and Noble.

New Ways to Play with the Tarot: Tarot for Two Podcast and Tarot Coloring

I feel like a tuning fork lately vibrating to the collective energy of the times, especially here on US Election Day. Tarot coloring is one way I stay connected to love and joy. I find color play soothing for the soul. Focusing on the tarot in this class in order to improvise gives us a way to converse with the decks of tarot across time and connect to our personal symbols that match the energy behind each card. You bring yourself, your art supplies of choice, your tarot deck if you have one (though I provide tarot images), and we create together in community. Here's my Ace of Windmills, my personal take on the Ace of Swords, created with my tarot students in 2016. Since then I have continued to tarot color and I'm so delighted to bring the process forward in class. 

I'll give a brief introduction to the card of the week and we will break in the middle of the hour to share process, and again at the end. Today we color to the Queen of Pentacles. We meet over zoom; use my contact form on this site to email me for the zoom invite and payment information. Here's a link to a longer description of the class on my main website, Tarot Coloring: A Heart's Compass Approach. Tarot coloring moves in sync with my Tarot Journaling class on Mondays, so come write to the card on Mondays, and tarot color to the same card on Tuesdays if you like. 

Or if you want another type of non-election related distraction, check out Tarot for Two's latest podcast, New Ways to Play with the Tarot Daily. I am elated to converse with my long time tarot buddy Mary Allen, breaking our tarot silence after about three years here (podcast silence, that is, and you can read our blogposts about our cards of the month here at Tarot for Two). Our next podcast will feature us talking about both of our specific six-card readings from a particular day so you'll have the chance to see the layout and interpretations in action.

September Sun Rays: Tarot for Transition

Can you see the sun from where you stand in the world? Of late our California skies are hazy, if not outright sun-blocked, so much of the west coast sorrowfully ablaze. We are aswirl with so many challenges and transitions, inner and outer. Zoom school in session, a child in every room of the house. Back in midsummer, tarot coloring this sun gave me some grounding joy. Though the image did not make it into my Heart’s Compass Tarot Workbook (which is winnowed, with the copy editor, and due out in February 2021), I share it in the spirit of process and with gratitude for the soothe of colors. 

One of the sweetest gifts of using tarot is the way it can provide a mirror and encourage a deeper conversation with the self in the service of joy. I’d love to connect, engage, and explore the timeless tool of the tarot with you through Antioch University and San Diego Writers, Ink. I also give away a tarot journaling writing prompt in my monthly newsletter; sign up for it here (September’s writing prompt focuses on the ten of swords).

 

Tarot Webinars at Antioch University

 

From Fear to Love: The Tower and Tarot’s Lover. How do static images on a card support inner personal growth and outward change? Join this webinar for a close look at the way Major Arcana (Big Secret) soul cards like the Tower and the Lovers can help us move from fear to love. To explore the archetypal energy behind both cards, we will look at a number of versions of both the Tower and the Lovers card. You’ll be introduced to some accessible but potent tarot journaling methods. No prior knowledge of the tarot necessary. Saturday October 3: 10 am PST / 1 pm Eastern Time. Cost: $25. For full details and to sign up visit: From Fear to Love

 

Tarot for Transition: Tarot Journaling for Joy. During times of transition and uncertainty, we can lose our connection to our inner compass and find ourselves feeling overwhelmed. In this four part webinar series, we will explore just one aspect of our lives at a time in relation to the transitions we are facing, using the lens of the four tarot aces: The Heart (love and dreams: Ace of Cups), The Hands (wealth and manifestation: Ace of Disks), The Will (inspiration and direction: Ace of Wands), and The Mind (vision and knowledge: Ace of Swords). We will walk through some simple tools for daily connection to the tarot through journaling, taking our “tarot eyes” into our surroundings, and celebrating the path forward as inspired by the energy of the four elements. No prior knowledge of the tarot is necessary. We meet four consecutive Saturdays. Cost for this 4 Part Webinar Series: $99.

 

Saturday October 17: 10 am PST / 1:00 pm ET
Saturday October 24: 10 am PST  / 1:00 pm ET
Saturday October 31: 10 am PST  / 1:00 pm ET (Halloween)
Saturday November 7th: 10 am PST  / 1:00 pm ET

 

For full details and to sign up visit Tarot for Transition.

 

Writing Classes at San Diego Writers, Ink

Tarot Journaling: A Heart's Compass Approach: This class meets Mondays over zoom and is a drop-in class so come and go as you please, we have a beautiful core group meeting at present. I made a commitment to journal through the entire deck, so we will be at this for seventy-eight weeks total. This coming Monday, September 21, we will dive into the eight of pentacles. Cost is $10 a session. Sign up here for Tarot Journaling. 

Saturday Poetry Read and Critique meets next on October 10, from 10 am to noon PST over zoom (we meet every second Saturday of the month). We are a heart-committed and lively group of poets with room for a few more faces. Offered through San Diego Writers, Ink. Sign up here for Second Saturday Poetry; fee is $30 for SDWI members, $36 for non-members. 

Additional links of interest:

My long term tarot buddy Mary Allen converses with me on our Tarot for Two podcast here; we have recorded five so far: 

How does the tarot work?

What do we do with the bad cards?

Is it just a deck of cards?

The Hanged One

The Empress.

You can access them all here:

Tarot for Two Podcasts

 

Tarot Inspired Coloring, Journaling, and Love Poems

Tarot Color Together 

Here’s a tarot-yoga improvisation based on a beautiful chakra meditation lead by one of Yoga with Shawna’s instructors, Isaac. My husband and I have been going to Isaac’s Sunday chakra meditations in IB for about a year (held over zoom now). Here’s my take on one of his meditation images he gave us of ascending over the Earth in a hot air balloon, releasing roses of every imaginable color to help heal the planet and all living things. I’m playing on Instagram (hearts compass tarot) as described on my main site: Tarot Improvisation: Creating Your Own Tarot Inspired Art. I hope you’ll color with me and use the hashtag #tarotimprovisation so I can see your artwork too.

Free Tarot & Poetry Classes

Tomorrow, Saturday April 25: Use the Tarot to Establish Your Journaling Practice: Power of the One-card Draw, a webinar at 10 am PST offered through Antioch University’s Inspiration to Publication program. This free introductory webinar covers an overview of the tarot’s structure and walks you through the tarot journaling process.

Tuesday, April 28: Images of Hope: Celebrating National Poetry Month, a free two-hour zoom workshop offered from 10 a.m. to noon PST through Coronado Public Library. I’ve gathered some poems about hope amid the pandemic (written by local San Diego poets) for our worksheet. Come write your own poem with me.

Donation-based Tarot Poetry Class 

Friday, May 1: Using Tarot Imagery to Write Love Poems is a two-hour zoom class (noon to 2 p.m. PST). We will explore the ways we can draw on tarot cards for inspiration as poets. I'll share a number of versions of the Lovers card and then we will draft our own poems. All proceeds from this class go to San Diego Writers, Ink. SDWI continues to be such a dynamic community hub for so many writers in San Diego; pay what you can. We miss everyone! Come connect over zoom.

Deepen Your Study of Tarot (fee-based courses)

Starts May 11: Join my six-week online course, Using Tarot to Mine Your Life for Writing Material: Tarot Journaling to Know Yourself, The Four Aces. This class offers a deep dive into the four Aces, represented by the four elements, a foundational structure of the tarot deck. You will learn how to tarot journal in order to connect your lived experiences to the cards, how to use a tarot timeline, and select work to revise with an eye towards publication. 

Ongoing: Join my weekly drop-in Tarot Journaling: A Heart's Compass Approach class offered through San Diego Writers, Ink.We are journaling our way through the entire tarot deck, one card per week. 

Tarot, Teens, and Tarot Journaling Classes

We live across the street from the ocean; our mind-centering activity this past week as we hunkered down (all of California on shelter in place)  has been to walk in the late afternoon and clear the beach of trash washed ashore—with care of course—picking up the sun-worn and wind-bedraggled detritus in the dunes. It is one tiny act that gives us a little agency. How are you coping?

Oxnard High School Writers Festival 2020

Tarot and Teens

Just last month (worlds ago, I’ve been saying lately), I had a beautiful time working with teen writers at the 2020 Oxnard High School Festival of Writers. Organized by wildly talented fiction writer and visual artist Sandra Hunter, the festival gave students and the community the chance to work with a variety of forms from songwriting, to poetry, to performance arts and more, as well as a chance to share at open mic. See my post, Using Tarot to Ask and Answer What Kind of Writer or Artist am I for the specific layout and steps for the three-card draws we did based on exploring our identity as writers and creatives. The post includes an example of an art synchronicity (an "angel of grief" sculpture) that visited a reading I conducted for my son about his identity as a musician.

Heart's Compass by Tania Pryputniewicz

Heart’s Compass Tarot Workbook and Classes Update

I am proud to announce that the official publication date for my Heart’s Compass Tarot Workbook will be  December 21, 2020. Grig Hill Books, a new imprint of Saddle Road Press, will publish the workbook. We are finalizing the manuscript as we speak. I’ll be teaching tarot related writing courses through Antioch University’s Online program from Inspiration to Publication again in May. Here's a link to Using the Tarot to Mine Your Life for Writing Material. We hosted my first ever tarot webinar this morning and will shortly announce additional free webinars to be held in the month of April on a variety of topics.

Luna sitting on the Tarot Journal

My locally based San Diego Writers, Ink, class “Tarot Journaling: A Heart’s Compass Approach” has moved from in-person to meeting over Zoom on Mondays from Noon PST to 1 p.m.  We are journaling our way through the entire tarot deck one card per week. I send out tarot images for you to reference (or you can use your own deck). This is a weekly drop-in, show up, write, and share format. It is a beautiful way to stay heart-connected during these times of isolation. This coming Monday we are writing to the Four of Cups; come join us! Stay for the second hour if you are interested in also writing your way towards tarot card creation. Full course description and sign-up link for hour 1 and hour 2 of class is here: Tarot Journaling: A Heart’s Compass Approach.

And finally, my long-standing Second Saturday Poetry Read and Critique class has also moved to Zoom (due to the coronavirus).  We meet next on April 11. We are a warm-hearted and poetry passionate group. We'd love to have you join us. Here's the link where you can sign up: 2nd Saturdays: Poetry Read and Critique.

Stay connected (through alternate means), stay safe, healthy, and hopeful. Please write to me through my contact form on this site if I can be of service to you in any way.

Related Links:

Visit Circle Circle dot dot to listen to a Facebook Live "Two of Cups" reading by Thelma Virata de Castro along with others also chosen; I'm blessed to have her in Tarot Journaling class where she wrote a Two of Cups entry that was chosen to be featured Sunday, March 22, 2020 at 2 p.m. 

Check out Dr. Plastic Picker; she is responsible for inspiring our family to be more aware of trash on our beaches (we joined her Imperial Beach Clean up in February). I'm looking forward to working with her in the future to bring awareness to environmental cleanliness, including offering writing workshops related to the topic. She has not only been our family pediatrician for years, but a beautiful, bright, visionary helper.

Brendan Constantine blew us all away with a beautiful reading of his poem, The Opposites Game at the Oxnard High School Writers Festival. Read it here, or watch the beautifully crafted You Tube version of The Opposites Game.